Hitching a Ride

Is this how the old man feels?
The pain is low, indentured servants nibbling
at organ-walls, sloshing hydriodic acids that spray
up to the tongue, up caustic rivers of life -
deck furniture peeling paint, peeling skin and
living emmeshed in roadkill and other roadside activies.

"Carry me away to heaven, laddie."
The driveway is empty, pills white behind doors that
never close fully, (doors in your heart).
Kick up dust and dribble spit on younglings,
watch them burn but oh, you are just an irritant.
A household chemical, a base and soon

you will be gone.
Could the strength be gathered,
no matter how dry you are below belt loops
and above your filmy eyes,
to stumble the peeling sidewalk home?
(the roadkill of the souls)

All right...here goes.

I very much liked the thing about 'is this how the old man feels?'. Good stuff- but it could be reinforced, mainly because it seems to be the meaning behind the poem (which has a lot of basic Death themes in it ).

So! How would you accomplish this?

'A household chemical, a base and soon

you will be gone.' needs to be compounded. Why? You're breaking up the flow of a perfectly good sentence. If you're going to be choppy, be choppy throughout- or make a blatant point with the choppiness. It would be really hard to emphasize the 'soon you will be gone part- since you would need to build up to it, and you've already mentioned roadkill.

And ah...the last line. A little lackluster, yes?

It's mainly because the 'too late' hints at a juvenile sense- a style you don't have. (You sound very grown up, just to clarify. )

'The roadkill of the souls' is a good line- and as you mention that he's walking a sidewalk, and earlier mentioned that roadkill was a 'roadside' activity, you could just put 'along the roadkill of the souls'. I'm pretty sure it would get across what you want to get across- and it just sounds a lot better.

Overall though? My favorite line was most definitely "Carry me away to heaven, laddie". That whole stanza was good- your use of flow and punctuation was very good.

So! Tell me if I'm being incoherent...and see you 'round, Gummy.

Personally, I don't like the 'big words'. They just seem so empty, like you just had a field day with a dictionary and sought out random words.

xanthan gum wrote:The pain is low, indentured servants nibbling
at organ-walls, sloshing hydriodic acids that spray
up to the tongue, up caustic rivers of life -

Organ-walls?

xanthan gum wrote:
A household chemical, a base and soon

you will be gone.

What? Why are you breaking up sentence like this? I kinda see your intention on this, but it just breaks up the rhythm of a perfectly normal sentence.

*bites lip* Organ walls...like the walls of organs... You know, the intestine-y stuff. That was my point.

I think you have to be careful when you use parentheses in a poem.

never close fully, (doors in your heart).

I'm not sure if I like that you included "doors in your heart". I personally prefer when the poet leaves room for interpretation.

to stumble the peeling sidewalk home?
(the roadkill of the souls)

In this particular instance I liked how you used the parentheses--to further convey a message, while not taking away from the mystery of the poem, as I found in the first instance.

Anyways, if you have them there for some reason that I'm just not picking up on, just leave it as is...It's still a wonderful poem. Cheers.

Very nice job gummy! Some words like hydrophioc (sp?) were confusing, but you created a feeling (at least for me) of...disgust (I mean organ walls and roadkill? UGH! )
You're so talented gummy. Great job.
And I understand what you meant about the organ walls.